“Or, if not the pump rooms, then why not visit the baths?” She swallowed a shudder. “Mama would be more than happy for you to join her and perhaps that is just the thing to lift your low spirits. In fact, I will join you!”
This last was indeed a great personal sacrifice, for no matter how long they stayed in Bath or how often her Mama invited her to join her in visiting the baths herself, Edith had never yet relented in her decided opposition to them. That she was willing to put her own personal preference aside and partake if it would encourage Joanna to leave their rooms was a true testament to her friendship. Joanna forced her smile to grow, grateful, in spite of everything, to have so good a friend beside her.
“You go ahead, Edith. You need not stay at home all day merely because I plan to. I have my book and my sewing. I am quite content.”
Edith sighed with wordless disbelief but she did at least cease from staring intently at Joanna as if looking for some secret sign of despair.
She will not find one, Joanna told herself, turning over a page she had not read. I am perfectly well! This was a lie that she could not even encourage herself to believe, let alone her friend. She was not perfectly well and she was not sure what could be done to remedy the situation. This was not a sickness that could be cured by medicinal waters, either drinking or bathing. Even walking, which would doubtless have been Amelia’s suggestion had she been there, was no solution, for it brought with it the never-ending fear of crossing paths with someone who would mention the duke or enquire after Joanna with a kind curiosity that did not hide their desire for further gossip. Joanna sighed and the sound was enough to draw Edith’s attention once more.
“Is something the matter?”
“No.” Joanna closed her book. “I was thinking perhaps I might sew a while. What a pity there is no piano.” Her fingers itched to play but that could hardly be helped.
“Kitty Radcliff has one!” Edith chirruped, sitting up in her seat and casting aside her work. “We might go and call on her! I am quite sure she would be happy to hear you play something. Come, let’s go now, while the weather remains clear!”
Joanna’s smile stiffened. She was caught, for she dearly loved to play and the promise of a piano but a short walk away was temptation indeed, but for the fact that the instrument belonged to Kitty Radcliff, who would certainly require some form of payment for its use in the form of delicious gossip. Joanna had avoided her when she and her mother had called on them immediately after the assembly by feigning a headache. She would not be so fortunate this time, particularly if the piano was held as a bargaining chip.
“No, I think -”
Before she could complete her thought, the door opened and a servant presented a plate on which were two letters, both addressed to Joanna. With relief, she snatched them up.
“There! I will stay in and attend to my correspondence. I am quite sure Miss Radcliff would be happy to see you, though, so do not feel as if you must sacrifice the visit on my account.”
“We might go later...” Edith said, mournful but determined not to give up her plan so easily. Changing the subject, she nodded towards the letters, the first of which Joanna had opened and already begun to read. “Who are your letters from?”
Surprised by the very first sentence she came across, Joanna let out a cry, then read it again.
“What is it?” Edith asked, hitching closer to her on the narrow sofa the two girls shared. “What is the matter?”
“My brother is coming to Bath!” Joanna exclaimed, skimming to the bottom of the note to see if he specified a time. As soon as possible, was all that Ben’s sensible hand promised, and Joanna felt her heart begin to beat a little quicker. Ben would come, and Amelia too! Oh, how wonderful it would be to have people here who understood her. Her smile dropped a little as she considered the strangeness of their timing. Why, they could not have arrived back in England very long at all and yet they were already seeking to travel again!
“I did not realise they had planned to include Bath in their wedding tour!” Edith exclaimed happily. “How wonderful it will be to see Amelia - I mean, Lady Devereax - again.”
“They did not plan to,” Joanna said, softy, as she scanned the letter once more for some clue as to the change in their travel plans. Have they heard about what has happened here? Her heart began to pound a little faster. That would mean the gossip had already strayed far beyond the limits of Bath proper. People would be talking about her, saying all kinds of things that weren’t true. This must have been what it was like for my brother! she realised, with a heavy sigh. Poor Ben had endured a decade of gossip and speculation - speculation that she, too, had believed and passed on as if it were gospel truth and not a malicious plan implemented by her mother to cause their separation. Yet Ben managed to emerge from it unscathed, she reminded herself. And if he can do it, so can I. I have done nothing wrong but believe a gentleman when he introduced himself to me! This much was true, and she was more relieved than she could say that she had forever acted with propriety and not allowed herself to lose her head over the so-called duke’s attentions.
“And who is your other note from?” Edith urged, when Joanna had not spoken or moved for quite some time. To her surprise, Joanna realised she was holding a second letter, one she had quite forgotten receiving. She split the seal and smoothed it out, frowning as she recognised her mother’s curled, romantic hand.
Joanna dear! I have heard tell that you have captured the heart of a duke - none other than the Duke of Edgmont! My dear, how clever of you! He is quite the wealthiest and most eligible gentleman, my friends tell me, and for you to have secured his heart is absolutely wonderful! I see now I was right all along to insist upon your visiting Bath and not coming to London. Do you see? You must trust me, for I have only your future happiness in mind. Tell me, has the duke proposed? I shall look forward to receiving my invitation to your wedding. I trust your brother’s ire against me will have relented to allow me to attend and not remain exiled from my own daughter’s life any longer...
Joanna clenched the letter so tightly that her fingernails dug into the paper creasing it mercilessly. How dare Mama speak as if she had orchestrated everything? As if the matter of Joanna marrying the duke was a foregone conclusion! Clearly, she had only heard some part of the story or chosen to ignore the rest. And she spoke as if Ben had exiled her from Westham, kept her from her daughter when it was Mama herself who sought to keep Joanna at arm’s length. It was too ridiculous! Too selfish. Too -
“Joanna?”
“It is a note from Mama,” Joanna said icily. She folded the note up and threw it listlessly towards the fire. “Nothing of importance. Merely saying that she hopes we are enjoying our time in Bath.” She sighed, turning her attention back to Ben’s letter. “I shall enjoy it all the more when Benjamin arrives. Where do you suppose he will stay? And we must show Amelia all of our favourite places. She will like the pump rooms, I am sure, for there is such scope for the imagination there. You two will be delighted to forever walk miles around in a circle, eavesdropping on conversations and constructing dramas for the players within.” She poked Edith in the side, smiling to show that she was teasing.
“Shall we go now?” Edith asked, striving to keep the pleading tone from entirely overshadowing her voice.
“I am in no humour to be at the mercy of gossips in the pump rooms,” Joanna confessed. “But I will go out for a walk with you. Shall we not take a visit to Milsom Street again and examine their offerings? If my brother is coming to Bath, I suppose he will wish to see me in something new.” And perhaps looking at dresses and ribbons and lace will take my thoughts off Samuel Rowe, or whatever name he now claims to possess. I have already devoted too many hours to thinking of him, and it serves me poorly to linger on it any longer!
Edith clapped her hands and hurried around the room, gathering her belongings together and preparing to hurry out before Joanna could possibly change her mind.
Chapter Thirteen
/> It was but a few short days later when Joanna was startled from reading by a knock at the door. She had persevered with the pretence until pretending gave way to actual reading and was finding the thrilling adventure unfolding between her pages so compelling it was no longer a lie that she preferred to read it than to visit the pump rooms with Edith, who had almost tired of asking her.
“Good afternoon, Miss Devereaux!” Sir Benjamin Devereaux said, with a polite bow. His new bride, Amelia, was not so decorous, elbowing her handsome husband aside so that she could hurl herself into Joanna’s arms.
“Joanna!”
“Amelia!”
Joanna discarded her book, thrilled and delighted by the arrival of her family - of her friends. “When did you come? I didn’t know you would arrive today!”
“Nor did we!” Ben admitted, with a warm laugh. “We should have arrived yesterday, and we would have done, had it not been for the weather.” He shuddered. “More than a little inhospitable to travel, alas.”
“But - you never said you were coming so soon!”
“I think I did.” Her brother was affronted. “I said we would come as soon as possible. Well, here we are. As soon as possible!” He folded his long frame into a chair and Amelia sat down next to Joanna on the sofa.
“Where is Edith? And her Mama?” Amelia frowned, glancing around her with concern. “They haven’t left you here alone?”
“They certainly have!” Joanna said, blithely. “I asked them to. Edith was determined to go to the pump rooms again today and I -” She trailed off, feeling her cheeks redden slightly. “I did not care to.” She looked up, surprised to see her brother’s eyes fixed on her, an unreadable expression darkening his handsome face. Clearing her throat, she continued. “Anyway, it is a good idea I did stay at home, otherwise you would have arrived to call at an empty house! Tell me, where are you staying? And I want to hear all about your travels!”
“We’ll get to those!” Amelia promised, with a twinkle in her eyes. “I am more interested to hear from you. How is Bath? Are you enjoying it? I have not seen much but so far it seems quite charming. It is not London, of course....”
“Saints be praised,” Ben grumbled, and the ladies exchanged knowing looks.
“It is...enjoyable,” Joanna managed. “There are some interesting people.” She stopped short of naming anyone in particular. “And the assemblies are...” No, here she could not speak knowledgeably, either, for the last assembly she had attended at the New Rooms she had courted scandal by fleeing at the very beginning. She had not attended one since, although Edith had, and claimed it was not half so enjoyable without her friend by her side. Joanna had feigned a headache and promised to attend the next, which was coming up sooner than she dared to acknowledge. Her brother and Amelia would no doubt care to attend as well and she could not very well put them all off.
“You said Edith has gone to the pump rooms,” Amelia offered, when Joanna had lapsed into silence for a moment too long to be quite natural. “I have heard a great deal about them. Is not the water supposed to be most beneficial to one’s health?”
“Far outweighed by the propensity of gossip that accompanies it, I don’t doubt,” Sir Benjamin said, with a snort. “You are wise to avoid it, sister dear, although I am surprised that you do not care to be seen there at every opportunity.” He looked at her carefully. “Is that not the usual goal of young ladies in Bath?”
“Not all young ladies, surely!” Amelia declared, rising up in defence of her friend. “If Joanna cared to stay at home one day out of seven she is more than allowed!” She lifted her chin in defiance, before dimpling at her husband and turning back to Joanna. “I only hope you will come when I go, for I long to see them and shall not care to do it without you beside me!”
“With the weather threatening to turn as unpleasant as it is, you may find that the pump rooms are all the entertainments Bath can offer during the day,” Sir Benjamin remarked, peering out of the window at the thickening grey clouds. “It is dry for now, but I do not believe peace will hold for long.”
Amelia shuddered, turning back to Joanna.
“Oh, you cannot believe how dreadful the weather was for our crossing back here! I have never been so sick in all my life!”
“I’m fairly sure a boot came out of her,” Benjamin remarked, which teasing made his new wife pick up a cushion and aim it squarely at his head. He caught it easily and stood, placing it carefully down on the seat he had just vacated.
“Well, ladies I shall leave you together to reminisce and talk and...” He fluttered his fingers. “Do whatever it is young ladies do. I have calls to make. Milly.” His voice softened as he addressed his new wife and Joanna saw a glimpse behind the merriness and teasing that they were a young couple very much in love. “Help Joanna to gather her things. I’ll come back with the carriage and we can move you into Sydney Place unless you prefer to stay here?”
Joanna beamed, relishing the thought of a room to herself, and more besides. She nodded and bid her brother farewell with an impromptu hug that surprised them both, for they were still working on rebuilding the relationship that a decade of parting had left damaged.
As soon as he left, she ordered a tea tray and hurried back to the sofa where Amelia was still waiting for her.
“I’m so glad you are here!” she confessed, allowing a slight tremor to come into her voice that she had striven to hide from everyone this past week. “I have so much to tell you!”
“And I, you,” Amelia said, with a careful smile. “But I gather yours is rather more important and more necessary, so tell me, do. Tell me whatever you wish to and know that even before I was your sister I was and am your closest friend and want only what is best for you.” She folded her hands primly in her lap and looked at Joanna with a mask of readiness. “There, you may begin.”
Laughing, both delighted to have her old friend beside her and feeling that, at last, she might receive sage counsel and know how best to proceed with her problem, Joanna began to speak, allowing the whole story of Mr Nicholls and the Duke of Edgmont to work its way out. If Amelia knew any of it already she did not indicate as much, merely nodding and agreeing at various points to demonstrate that she was listening. When Joanna’s voice cracked, she reached for her hand and clasped it warmly, squeezing gently to urge her on.
“...and now I do not know what to do!” Joanna finished, her words tumbling out all in a rush. “I cannot possibly forgive him, can I? For he lied from the very first time I met him. I hardly know who he is any more - although I know who he is not!” She spoke the last word with such vehemence that even the fire seemed to crackle in agreement.
“Well, perhaps knowing who he is not is a good place to begin,” Amelia mused. “It is a sorry thing that he endured injuries meant for his friend, but knowing that he earned them in error, and not as the result of his own profligacy is surely some comfort.”
“I suppose,” Joanna permitted. She had been relieved to see the duke again, to know for herself that, whilst injured, he rallied and would make a full and complete recovery. She had imagined all sorts of insurmountable agonies for him when she heard of the attack, so to have seen him standing on his own two feet, with his handsome face but a little obscured by bruising and swelling that still had not entirely subsided, had been a comfort of sorts. Why, then, could she not let go her grip on her anger and hurt at his deceit?
“What explanation did he offer for their scheme?” Amelia asked, reaching a hand out to smooth down a loose lock of Joanna’s hair, the same dark colour as her brother’s.
“It was some game, he said. A lark. He wished - he wished to see what people thought of him as he was, not as “the Duke of Edgmont”. Joanna shook her head. “If that bears believing.”
“I think, perhaps, it does,” Amelia murmured, after a long moment of silence. “You said yourself that when you met the man you thought was the duke you could not believe him to be the same man that Benjamin had referred to in his lette
r. You strove to make excuses and to like him in spite of that, because of his title.”
Joana winced. Hearing her actions in Amelia’s calm, gentle voice only made her more aware of how mercenary she sounded. This was not the type of person she was, was it? This was Mama, who would excuse any number of follies if a gentleman possessed the wealth and title to overshadow them.
“I wanted him to be Mr Nicholls,” she admitted. “And I wished Mr Nicholls could be the duke, could be the gentleman I - I loved.” Her voice almost died away with the last word, so surprised was she to think it, to hear herself saying it aloud, applying it without qualification or embarrassment to the man she still claimed to be angry with.
“Perhaps the two of you might begin again, on equal footing now,” Amelia mused, turning towards the tea that had been brought and ignored and had since grown quite cold. “Let us fetch a fresh pot of tea and talk on other, happier things. You look quite wrung out, Jo, dear, so sit back and rest and I shall tell you all the places I have been...”
“YOU ARE AN IDIOT, EDGMONT.”
Sir Benjamin Devereaux had scarcely been shown through the door to join Samuel in the parlour when he spoke.
“Please, Devereaux, do not equivocate. Tell me what you truly think,” Samuel grumbled, once he saw a slight sparkle in his acquaintance’s eye that suggested he was being teased.
Sinking down into a chair, Devereaux grinned, the smile fading as he saw the bruises still plainly evident across one side of Samuel’s face, although they were growing less pronounced with every day that passed.
“You are lucky you came off no worse from the scam. You are healing up well now?”
It was not pity, for neither man could abide pity, but there was a note of sympathy that softened the tension in the air between them and made it seem, all of a sudden, as if Sir Benjamin Devereaux and the Duke of Edgmont were not mere acquaintances, but genuine friends. Samuel drew a breath. There was hope yet that they might be, once this mess was fully resolved.
A Duke in Disguise (Westham Chronicles Book 3) Page 10